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Friday, December 11, 2015

Turkey: Ambassador to the PA justifies terror wave

Mustafa Sarnic, the Turkish ambassador to the Palestinian Authority (PA), on Thursday justified the wave of terrorist attacks against Israelis, during which 22 Israelis have been murdered since October.

In an interview with the Hamas-affiliated Palestine newspaper, Sarnic said that Israel "must know that the blood of the Palestinian people is expensive" and that its policies, which harm the Palestinians and the holy places, prompted the Palestinians to rise up to “defend” the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Sarnic repeatedly stressed the need to fully remove the blockade of the Gaza Strip and called on Islamic countries to stand alongside the Palestinians.

Al-Aqsa Mosque "belongs to all Muslims and is holy land," he said, adding, "Palestine is the land from which the heavenly journey of Mohammed began and the first direction of prayer for Muslims, so everyone, not just Turkey but all Islamic countries, must stand alongside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Palestinian people as we always do."

The comments follow ones by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has twice in the last week expressed support for the Palestinian Arab terror wave against Israel.